Introduction









The disposal of waste from construction sites has become an expensive business. Gone are the days where everything was piled into a skip and taken off to be dumped in landfill for little or no expense.

The UK produces around 400 million tonnes of waste annually of which about 72 tonnes results from construction sites. Quite apart from landscape degradation in the form of landfill sites, construction waste represents an immense haemorrhage of potentially valuable materials as well as the energy required to produce and transport them.

The DTI conservatively estimates that more than 20% of waste materials from site can be saved by re-use and recycling. If this figure were translated into financial savings, the case for on-site waste segregation becomes compulsive.
In addition to the implicit costs of generating site-waste is the more explicit effect of increasing legislation from government. During the last year the construction industry has seen the cost of waste disposal rise dramatically as the result of increasing landfill tax coupled with the increased number of materials classified as ‘Hazardous’. Through legal requirements to ensure the segregation and separate disposal of hazardous waste in a dramatically reduced number of landfill sites available, the cost of disposal has become very expensive.
Initiatives
A number of initiatives have grown up recently to address the problems of site waste disposal. These initiatives have concentrated on the benefits of waste material segregation. The principle is that if potentially re-usable and recyclable materials can be removed from the waste stream heading for landfill, contractors can realise considerable savings in the cost of producing and disposing of site waste.

As a good example of waste segregation is that of Simons Construction Ltd.. After implementing a waste reduction strategy over a monitored 3 year period, Simons realised a dramatic effect that saw their waste to landfill reduce by 60% and the cost of removing waste by 40%. In 2004 this represented 0.18% of the company’s £190m turnover.
WasteCost® lite
The NGS’s contribution to the cause of site-waste segregation is an Excel-based application called WasteCost®. WasteCost® lite, which is freely downloadable, has been specifically designed to demonstrate, through the simple expedient of identifying and segregating waste, the possible savings that can be made from the cost of the project.

WasteCost lite will:
• Calculate how much waste will be generated
• Calculate how much waste can be reclaimed for reuse or recycling by segregation
• Calculate how much waste can be diverted from landfill
• Calculate the number of skips required for each waste stream
• Calculate the cost of disposing of skips
• Calculate the savings possible through waste segregation

Instructions:
• Download the files below
• Launch WasteCost Lite in Excel or your preferred spreadsheet application and follow the simple flow chart. Enter data where asked and the results will be shown interactively.
• The Waste Cost Manual provides further information.
Download


manual download
Feedback
We welcome your comments. Please contact Brian Murphy at: WasteCost@greenspec.co.uk
Further information
• GreenSpec: Waste and demolition specifications
• DTI 'Site Waste Management Plans'
• BRE SMARTWaste